I've had a good weekend in Adelaide, including a visit to my brother's house. Across the road, down by the creek, is a patch of European stuff which was making a nice autumnal display.


About a hundred years ago, somebody planted a row of English oaks. Their leaves are just starting to turn, although the plane trees have mostly dropped their leaves and the poplars are already bare.


Walking down towards the creek.


The track on the other side. I'm not sure what all these are, but there's quite a lot of hawthorn on the left (still green, with red berries).


That side of the creek is in almost permanent shade. So a lot of the trees are covered in lichen.


The creek.


Back on the other side, looking at what my brother calls the Mount of Olives. The big Aleppo pine died in the drought, as did quite a few other things by the look of them - strangled by the olives, which are a declared weed in Adelaide. Most of that hill is in the state park, so my brother takes his chain saw over there every now and then. He showed us two giant piles of olive and hawthorn that he's cut down from an area the size of somebody's living room.


The first photo above shows what the hillside will look like when he finishes the job. All the stuff in the top right part of that photo is regenerated native grasses and shrubs after the olives were cleared off.